Recently, I saw an article by the "famous poet" Lei Pingyang, "Lei Pingyang on Writing". The starting sentence of this article is "To write poetry is to speak human words, and to make each Chinese character come alive." The first paragraph of the main text points out that poetry carries too many "historical missions", and returns to the narrative, showing language attributes, personal spiritual space and aesthetics, and finally lets poetry return to the right path.
Lei Pingyang is a "famous poet" and his words should be authoritative. However, I still have some doubts, is poetry really not a "historical mission"? Such a tone, which appeared decades ago, was the starting point of the "third generation of poetry movement". "Anti-sublime, anti-value, anti-culture" is actually to get poetry rid of its "historical mission".
Lei Pingyang (Image from the Internet)
Therefore, modern poetry has entered another "realm". In order to get rid of the "historical mission", poets "colloquially" poetry, even "salivating", "nonsense", and "lower body". There is Isa's Car Over the Yellow River of peeing on the Yellow River, there are all kinds of nonsense poems, and there is Jia Qianqian's and urine body.
These poems were admired and popular, but Wang Guozhen's poems were not recognized (Wang Guozhen's poems were indeed seriously sloganized and played a certain negative role, but they were ideologically positive). The various "bodies" that have appeared in the future, including the "pear blossom body", "lamb body", "wuqing body", "feces and urine body", and recently some people have proposed the "shaojun body", all of which are the results of getting rid of the "historical mission".
Jia Qianqian (Image from the Internet)
When I write poetry now, I am afraid that I will be involved with the "historical mission" and that I will be associated with the "positive energy". Write what is low-level, and write what is not like poetry. Lei Pingyang's own "The Process of Killing Dogs" is "anti-sublime", and his "Thirty-three Tributaries of the Lancang River in Lanping County, Yunnan", which is like a flowing account, is "countercultural".
Therefore, getting rid of the "historical mission" is the root cause of the repeated criticism and even ridicule of modern poetry. "Colloquialism" is only the expression of poetry, and getting rid of the "historical mission" is the barren and tasteless essence of modern poetry. There is no thought, no poetic beauty, no readability, so that modern poetry has lost all the qualities of poetry.
As a result, our "linguistic attributes" are not revealed, our "personal spiritual space" is empty, and our "aesthetics" become "ugly." Then, when the Tang poems were written in Song Dynasty, did the poems have a "historical mission"? "Who on the banks of the river first saw the moon, and when did the river moon shine at the beginning of the year?" Ostensibly writing about the moon, it actually has a "historical mission" passed down from generation to generation.
"Wang ShiBei fixed the Central Plains Day, the family sacrifice did not forget to tell Naiwong", "Laughing and talking about thirst and thirst for the blood of the Xiongnu" is a direct embodiment of the "historical mission". Even "looking up at the bright moon and looking down at the hometown" also has a "historical mission", is this not a hope for reunion? "Bright moon pine light, Qingquan stone upstream" also has a "historical mission", that is, the pursuit of harmony and peace.
Poetry cannot get rid of the "historical mission", because the person who writes poetry cannot get rid of the "historical mission". Each of us has a "historical mission", and "poetry" must also have a "historical mission". The delusion of letting poetry get rid of the "historical mission" is actually to make modern poetry a castle in the air, a "strange thing" that is not grounded and has no vitality.
This is not only not to "return poetry to the right path", but to "let poetry go to the crooked and evil way". In the development of modern poetry in these decades, all kinds of strange "bodies" and all kinds of surprising poems have proved this. Modern poetry has gone farther and farther in the "crooked way", and it has even become terminally ill.
This plunged poetry into the quagmire of "nihilism", making modern poetry a tool for personal emotional catharsis, a test field for arbitrary experimentation. This is why there are all kinds of "bodies", all kinds of "poems", which is the result of the separation from the "historical mission".
However, these "famous poets" are still advocating that poetry cannot have a "historical mission", which is to put modern poetry to death. Let poetry shoulder its due "historical mission" is not to shout slogans, not to write only positive energy. But at least poetry should be in line with the times, should be in line with the "spiritual space" and "aesthetics" of most people, which must have the "brand of the times", and must have a "historical mission".